The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, it makes the case that documents and fiction have long been seen as opposites and shows the opposition to be a false dichotomy. As such, the paper argues that fiction should be considered within documentation studies. Second, it offers one method for studying fiction within documentation studies through phenomenological analysis. To achieve both these aims, the paper uses Dennis Cooper's 1991 novel Frisk as a case study of fictional documents as well as fiction as a document.
This paper uses documentation studies and literary analysis to present Frisk as a novel made up of documents representing personal, phenomenological experiences of documents. A document transaction in Frisk is analyzed using Gorichanaz and Latham's (2016) methodology for phenomenologically analyzing documents.
Cooper's conceptualization and implementation of documents in fiction illustrate how dividing documents into real and imaginary is misguided. The truth of the information contained in a document is not what defines something as a document but rather an individual's experience of the document. The phenomenological analysis of documents in Frisk posits that a person's desires and beliefs are not formed by having correct information but through unique experiences of documents.
Documents entirely subsumed in a work of fiction have not been widely considered within documentation studies. Opening up documentation studies to fiction allows neglected documents to be examined and can provide new insights into how people understand and interact with documents.
